Hardware manufacturer HP has released the source code for its Advanced File System (AdvFS), which it uses for the Tru64 Unix OS under the GPL, along with a Linux reference implementation.

The publication of the source code, documentation and a test environment may help the filesystem become part of the Linux kernel very quickly, at least this is what HP hopes for. The roots of HP's own Unix Tru64 operating system go back to the eighties when HP collaborated with IBM, Digital Equipment and other vendors under the Open Software Foundation to create a 64 bit system dubbed OSF/1. The last version of OSF was released in 1994; HP will be supporting the Tru64 Unix operating system developed on the basis of OSF until 2012 at least. A new 5.1B-5 version has been announced for the latter half of 2008. The hardware manufacturer adopted a double pronged operating system strategy a few years back and HP's Linux server business has been very successful since then.

Hewlett-Packard has released a reference implementation for an enterprise Linux filesystem along with the source code for Tru64 AdvFS. According to HP, AdvFS will bring speed, security and performance advantages to Linux. The Unix filesystem's special features include simple file and storage management, online system backups, and high availability. Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin views the step as a major contribution towards promoting the use of the Linux operating system in enterprise environments: " HP's contribution of the Advanced File System code, coupled with their overall resource commitment to Linux, will greatly accelerate the development and commercial availability of improved system functionality for Linux.” says Zemlin.

The source coded, documentation and a test environment for AdvFS are available on Sourceforge under the GPL v2.

Although most Linux distributions today have simple-to-use graphical interfaces for setting up and managing filesystems, knowing how to perform those tasks from the command line is a valuable skill. We’ll show you how to configure and manage filesystems with mkfs, df, du, and fsck.

The extended filesystem has been part of the Linux kernel since 0.96c – a faithful companion of the free operating system. With its developments – or, rather, rebirths – through ext2, ext3, and ext4, it is one of the oldest Linux-specific software projects.